Different ways
by Dantriestobeproductive
Summary: Deep inside, he knows the accident with the Ghost Portal did something to him. Deep inside, he knows there's something *wrong*. (He's okay, there's nothing wrong, he's just sleepy and the bruises...he's okay, really, everything is good.) AU
1. 1

When he started to wake up in odd places, sometimes kilometers away from home, body sore and bruised, he'd try to return home, praying that his parents wouldn't notice his sudden disappearances or the strangeness of the fact that he'd never left his room in the first place.

He concentrated in this task, of hiding and pretending, so his parents wouldn't catch up on the fact that there was something wrong with their son.

_It was the only thing he could do in his situation._

Ignore it.


	2. Eyes

Sometimes he would wake up in his bedroom, splitting headache and feeling as if he had been run over by a car. Several times.

He'd go up, limping to the bathroom, and would go on with his day, ignoring the bruises in his body, the fast healing cuts that would leave webs of little scars that seemed to be expanding at a ever growing speed.

And sometimes, sometimes he would look at the mirror, and green eyes would return his glance. He would jump, or even trip and fall, and the pain would course trough his spine in a warning. When he looked again, the green eyes would be gone, blue orbs looking back in their place.

_My eyes are blue and my hair is black. My eyes are blue and my hair is black. I'm Danny Fenton. I'm Danny Fenton, _He would repeat to himself at the morning, at school, at night. But still, he would feel his breath itching as his body became suddenly cold, making him shiver, and he would only be able to scream to himself _I'm Danny Fenton_ as everything turned black.


	3. 0

It all had started after the lab accident. The first time he'd woken up, the first time he'd blacked out, the first time he'd opened his eyes to find that he wasn't where he had been before. His body hurt, and he was several feet away from the Portal (and he remembered, he remembered, white and _painpainpainpainmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitsTOPITHURTSITHURTSPLEASENONONONONONO_), breathing too heavy to hear anything that wasn't his heartbeat pounding strong and _wrong_.

It all had started in the lab. After that, the blackouts, the ghosts, _Phantom_, started.


	4. Phantom

When he met Phantom he almost screamed in panic.

He was with his friends, resting from the schoolwork and having a little fun at the fair (_"you seem always tired and stressed, Danny. Why don't we go to the fair? It'll be fun"_), when the ghosts had appeared, fighting and screaming to each other. And he had seen him.

Phantom, who talked like a self-proclaimed hero and flew with a white sheet as a cape.

Phantom, who looked _exactly like him_.

(He had choked a scream as the roller caster went down, a sickness in his stomach so intense his eyes watered, a horrible sense of _wrongness_ and _void_ wanting to _bury him._)

He'd_ thought_ that day would be different. He'd hoped that it would be different, because it had _felt_ different, _brighter_, as if someone had lifted a weight from his heart.

He hadn't expected _this_ to happen.

_I'm Danny Fenton that ghost didn't look like me no one thought it looked like me they would have said so they would He-__**It**__ doesn't look like me it's just a coincidence I'm Danny Fenton and everything's alright everything's alright it doesn't hurt my body doesn't hurt I'm happy for that I'm happy no more blackouts no more pain no more no more that's good I'm happy so why why-NO NO NO-_

_**STOP**__._

He took a sharp breath, returning to the present. His friends looked at him with worry.

He smiled weakly, and brushed it off as his shock at seeing ghosts fighting for the first time. His friends shared a concerned glance.

_I'm Danny Fenton and everything is alright._

That night, and for the first time, he blacked out as a sharp pain exploded in the back of his head.


	5. Do not

One time he woke up to find himself in familiar arms. _Vlad_, Vlad_ Masters_, his father's _friend_ and the guy who always tried to flirt with his mother, was _carrying him_, eyes strained to the horizon as he walked.

And in his hazy mind, numbed with pain and tiredness, he _knew_ Vlad would understand. He knew that, if he told him, the man would listen, and _understand_. He wouldn't send him to a psychiatric ward. He wouldn't try to psychoanalyze him, or tell him to seek 'professional help'. He would _listen_.

It hit him like a punch, but his limp body didn't react. His vision swam, and his hearing was off, going from absolute silence to distorted sounds, and that unnerving white noise. He tried to open his mouth (_and this would be a perfect time for spilling out his guts about all that he had tried to deny himself over the last months, all that was eating him inside_) and then shut it again as a sharp hiss sounded in his mind.

A warning, he realized, deep and threatening, so animal it put him off for a moment. Something that told him_ not to talk_.

(_danger danger danger do not dare do not talk stop stop right now shut up_)

So he remained silent, unfocused eyes looking at the man's suit, and missed the man's own eyes, a familiar look of resignation shining deeply in them.


	6. Ignore

He knew his parents were worried. He knew his friends were worried. He knew his sister was worried and he knew there were rumors.

He knew so much that sometimes he had to stop himself from wondering where had he learned those things.

(_Why did he know Dash had a closet full of plushies? Why did he know how the rooms that weren't accessible for student looked like? Why did he know what being hit with a ghost ray felt like and why did he know that blood blossoms were things he had to stay away from? Why? why? why?_)

Still, he ignored the stares, ignored the hushed voices that he could hear perfectly, ignored his friends' hands in his shoulder and the questions about his bruises. He stayed silent, or lied, and watched the people around him react, their eyes believing or disbelieving his words, some looking at him with hurt and some annoyed. He ignored Dash's tantrums, and kept quiet when he was showed in a locker. He breathed, and heard his heart beat (_wrong wrong wrong_, something in him told him that was _wrong_ and he didn't understand _why_), waiting for his friends to open it, waiting for nothing at all.

And still, no matter what he did or didn't do, the cold would always come, snatching him to a dark place until he woke up again.

And again.

And again.

And he knew he _wouldn't be able to stay like that the rest of his life._

So he wondered what _that_ meant.


	7. 1,5

He tried to find something in his sister's room. It was just curiosity, a spark of interest for psychology as he grew up. Yeah.

_(He told himself that. He told himself it wasn't that strange to fall asleep doing homework (even though he couldn't remember feeling sleepy) or walking while sleeping, there were people who did it all the time, he surely got the bruises from bumping into everything during his sleep walk. It was just curiosity, nothing more.)_

The books were big and heavy, and the words were difficult to understand (he had to look up in a dictionary what 'coping mechanism' meant, and what exactly was a 'neurological pattern'?), but by the time his sister caught him in her room, dread had already settled in his stomach as he read a thick and heavy looking book.

He only gave her sister a weak excuse as he left her room, quickly escaping before Jazz decided to interrogate him about his late behavior.

He locked the door behind him and slumped to the floor, looking at his room with unfocused eyes.

_Dissociative identity disorder (DID), previously known as multiple personality disorder (MPD), is a mental disorder characterized by at least two distinct and relatively enduring identities or dissociated personality states that..._

Somehow, somewhere along the hours he stayed like that, his eyes started to cry.

(Much later, he'd realize the greenish stains they left.)


	8. Fear

He started to flinch away from his parents little by little. First, it would be only when they were carrying some ghost equipment, and hearing those things go off in front of him would churn his stomach and make him run to the bathroom to throw up. Later, he'd flinch from his father's loud voice, and from loud noises in general, curling a little in himself and taking a deep breath to calm down, while hiding his suddenly freezing hands under his armpits to warm them up. Finally, he started to flinch when one of his parent's tried to hug him, or touch him from behind.

He thinks he once worked himself into a panic attack, after hearing a loud explosion and the screams of his father. His mother had touched his back then, and ran to the basement where the explosion and screams had come from, while Danny had been left feeling colder and colder by the second as he gasped for air, and he couldn't breathe, sounds muting and colors dancing over his eyelids–

The darkness was familiar by then.


	9. Haunting

Phantom haunted him even in his dreams. It had become a regular thing, to have the ghost beating him in his nightmares, were it in the middle of the air over different parts of the city or the school, or in the middle of green nothingness that moved like some kind of creepy, ectoplasmic thing.

Phantom would always beat him, sometimes while another creepy, vampire-like ghost looked from the sidelines, and he would bleed and groan in pain, feeling strangely cool and disconnected (_but it was a dream, so it was normal. The fact that he could pass through objects and his skin seemed to almost glow meant nothing_). Phantom would shout at him, mangled words that were so twisted it was a miracle Danny's ears didn't start to bleed, and Danny would curl into a ball, a green and intermittent wall sometimes saving him from some blows.

And the worst of all, was the anger he could taste and feel around him. And the _fear_. He choked on it, wheezed through it, felt sick because of it as Phantom threw him against concrete, pinned him there and growled nonsensical sounds with green eyes that glowed in fury.

Sometimes, Danny would try to fight back. Sometimes, he'd try to scream, fear and exhaustion and pain in his bloodstream, and he'd always scream the same words.

"_Leave me alone"_

But Phantom would frown, as if confused, before his eyes glowed in ire and he went back to shouting and beating him.

* * *

I kind of not updated this in...months. Yeah. Oops.

Anyway, I had these two written for a while, so there you go. I don't know when I'll continue this, to be honest, so don't be surprised if there aren't any updates for a long time... You can look on my profile for more fics, though, see if something catches your eye. *wink wink, nudge nudge*

See ya!


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